When Wyatt Buglovsky saw that his school was starting an esports team, and one of the games was Mario Kart, he leapt on an opportunity to play the game competitively.
He had been playing the game for nearly a decade, from the Nintendo GameCube to Wii to Switch. When he joined the esports team, he played more consistently, and watched his ability improve to become one of the best players in the state.
Recent graduate Buglovsky, the team’s captain, will represent the new Escalante esports team at the all-star competition as a first-team all-state selection in Mario Kart. The Escalante team started this year for competitive video games, and made the state semifinals in Mario Kart.
When they made the semifinals, the Escalante team got a chance for a different type of competition. The final four rounds took place in Albuquerque for in-person competition. Players were up on a stage next to each other in front of an audience with a big screen behind them. And the matches were broadcast with live commentary (replays are available on the UNM Esports YouTube Page).
“It was really cool,” Buglovsky said. “That was the first time I’ve gone that far in anything, because I didn’t do any basketball, so I didn’t go to state and stuff. It was pretty cool to be up on the stage and competing.”
At the start of the year, the Chama Schools superintendent had wanted to add more activities, and then-principal Ira Harge was looking for volunteers to potentially start an esports team for the schools.
DeVargas, an special education assistant across the district, said she had been following esports competition since it began in 2018-19, and they have quickly grown in popularity in the past three years (Dulce and Coronado also started teams for this year). So, she decided to start up the team and look for participants, putting up flyers around the school, and found students mostly who did not participate in other sports. There were also a group of middle-school students who stayed with the team to prepare to compete in future years.
The team chose Nintendo games Super Smash Bros. (a cartoon fighting game) and Mario Kart (a racing game with similar characters) to participate in. DeVargas called herself a “casual gamer” and grew up playing older versions of the same games.
“But these kids, they’re like encyclopedias,” DeVargas said. “Of like Smash Brothers characters, moves, rules. And same with Mario Kart. So, they taught me a lot.”
For Smash Bros. the competitions are a best-of-three where three from each team go head-to-head in individual “stock” matchups. And for Mario Kart, it is a team competition (with points awarded after each race) with a best-of-three rounds of six races each.
The Escalante Squire Squad, as they named themselves, began competing in the fall with regional competition from the school’s computer lab against schools around the western region, including Colorado and California. Buglovsky said he expected to be good because of how much he played, but did not think he would be among the best, and was excited to try out his skill in official competition.
“They really improved, from September to when we made it to state in May,” DeVargas said. “I can’t speak highly enough of how these students took esports seriously, and were dedicated to it. They were dedicated to helping each other, supporting each other, helping me.”
DeVargas said that the high school team also inspired younger students to want to compete.
“Once elementary kids found out that we had an esports program, they were like, ‘Wow, can we join? Can we have esports?’” she said. “I don’t see why we can’t have esports starting at the elementary level some day soon.”
Once the spring New Mexico season started, Escalante quickly had a chance to see where they stood. And they surprised themselves with how well they were doing, with at one point the Super Smash Bros. team, led by captain Feliciano Bustamante along with Abigail Martinez and Jolie Campos, in first place.
“That was really exciting to see, like, we have a chance to go to state,” DeVargas said.
DeVargas set up Instagram and Facebook pages, with 100 members between the two, to update parents and community members on the team’s progress. Her goal for next year is to set up a streaming channel to broadcast their matches.
Also on the Mario Kart team were Wyatt’s sister Kylie, along with Bustamante, Martinez and Campos from the Smash Bros. team. And DeVargas said they were great at working together, and rotating between players. And Buglovsky won most of the races all the way through state.
“It was definitely different (on a team), because normally I play by myself,” Buglovsky said. “It was pretty cool to play as a team. You had to learn different tactics and strategies.”
Buglovsky raced as Metal Mario for much of the beginning of the year. Then, after an update changed character’s abilities, he switched to Koopa Troopa.
Ultimately, both teams made the state tournament. The Smash Bros. team was the No. 13 seed with a 5-6 record, and lost to No. 4 Ft Sumner Foxes in the first round.
A strong season at 7-4 for the Mario Kart team resulted in a No. 6 seed. They swept through Magdalena in the first round, then faced No. 3 Evangel Christian in the quarterfinal, who had gone 9-2 in the regular season, including beating Escalante. But Escalante pulled off the upset, winning 2-1 to reach the semifinals.
In Albuquerque, the team lost 2-0 to Early College Academy, and ultimately took fourth place.
And for DeVargas, she got to meet fellow team coaches in person after communicating with them through the season.
Buglovsky was one of four A-2A classification players selected for the all-star team, along with 12 selections from larger-classification schools. Buglovsky said his team has been in contact and plans to practice with each other in the week leading up to the competition.
The all-star match is on Saturday afternoon, and will be streamed on Twitch on the New Mexico State Esports page.
“If we’re all at the same skill level, evenly matched teams, it’s going to be very good,” Buglovsky said.